The Switch System of Nintendo Company is gearing for its most successful shopping holiday season ever, according to the latest analyst estimates collected by Bloomberg.
The company is likely to deliver 9.45 million units of Switch gaming units and 64.74 million units of operating systems for the month of December. While the console forecast figures only indicate a slight improvement on last year's results, they are games that yield most of Nintendo's profit and software sales may rise by around 23 percent.
Attaining these numbers could prompt Nintendo Co. to review its conservative outlook for earnings for the year ending March 2020.
In its third holiday season, the Switch's success will also contain hints for the console's durability in a market where technology is usually overhauled every five years and competitors including Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. are already planning new systems for the end of 2020.
"Nintendo has a very unique and effective way of selling game software. Nintendo designed the console so that it can be used both on the big living room screen and on the go," said Kazunori Ito, an analyst at Tokyo's Morningstar Investment Services.
Since its launch in March 2017, combined sales have already peaked at 40 million units and many analysts expect the Switch to last long enough to reach the Nintendo Wii record of 100 million.
The Kyoto-based company has kept its 1.25 trillion yen in sales the projection for the year ending March 2020 with a moderate outlook of operating profit of 260 billion yen ($2.4 billion). That is short of the 308.8 billion yen and 1.28 trillion yen predictions of economists, respectively.
Nintendo also plans this fiscal year to deliver 18 million Switch units and 125 million new software releases. It contrasts with the figures of 19.07 million for the median of four analysts and a total of nine projections of 147.43 million.
This year, with two new titles - Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, Nintendo is again targeting the Pokemon fan base. The games, which debuted on November 15, were criticized by fans who were unhappy with the quality of graphics and animations and the lack of the "pocket monsters" stable.
Nintendo is trying to replicate the Wii Fit's popularity - the fitness app which broke new ground when it was released in 2012 together with a portable Balance Board.
This shipped over 50 million copies and was crucial to expanding the Wii console's appeal to new audiences. While Nintendo apologized on Friday for being unable to keep up with overwhelming demand, Ring Fit Adventure is off to a promising start.
